(AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)Gerard Butler is showing lots of interest in a new film, Machine Gun Preacher, being developed based on a book by Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing biker who found God and became a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who’ve been kidnapped and pressed into duty as soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Childers established an orphanage, the Children's Village, in the Southern Sudan to house 300 children, then formed a militia to protect them, recover other kidnapped kids, and dispense outlaw justice on their captors.

The memoir, Another Man‘s War: The True Story of One Man‘s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan, prompted a Dateline NBC segment on Childers' work and caught the attention of producer Robbie Brenner and screenwriter Jason Keller who approached him about the film rights to his story.

Now it seems the film may very well become a reality.

Not only did Butler meet with Childers late last year in Central City, PA, but according to Deadline Hollywood, the project is being shopped around by CAA and Management 360.

Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, Monster's Ball, The Kite Runner) is on board to direct the film.

The Daily American reported last weeks that Somerset Pennsylvania artist Casey Kennell recently completed a trailer for Childers to use on his summer book tour and has been commissioned to complete three more paintings for the preacher: one for a truck and two for motorcycles that are to appear in the movie.

Filming may begin this May in Reels Corner, Pennsylvania.

Could this be the award-winning dramatic role Butler was born to play?